Skill:

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Abaddon
~ Requesting Dre Klage ~

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The evening crept, the mouth of the growing night yawning to engulf the quiet air. The night would come, ominous and ebony. And the mist, heavy and hollow, hung in heaving drapes across the forest floor. The tendrils of the willows above reached downward with intent toward the creatures that lingered in the undergrowth, somehow also blocking the light form the sunset in the distant sky beyond.

Draugur was ... comfortable here.

He'd traveled only a little ways out of Mistveil, his large paws moving with silent, intentful steps. Ever since their battle with the bears of the sand, Draugur had spent his evenings searching for more of the fuckers.

It had felt ... good ... to fight them. He remembered the sting of the sand on his face, burning into his eyes and burrowing beneath his fur to sear his skin. He remembered the feeling of his fangs in their disembodied necks, ripping and tearing until they disintegrated.

Just like his dreams, they melted.

Twisted. Spiraled.

And so he traveled through the misted undergrowth, the edges of his own corporeal form hazy against the silver vapor. Nostrils would flare, the muscles of his youthful shoulders rolling as he prowled into the coming evening in search of things that were neither alive nor dead.

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Skill: Ghost

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Abaddon stalked Draugur unknowingly. His brother seemed to have no idea the massive beast was stalking him incessantly, his eyes never leaving to pale Revenant as he slipped Abaddon slipped. The monochrome monster slipped from behind tree to tree, ducking behind brush and doing a damn good job of hiding.

Abaddon too remembered the sting of the bears, the prize he'd won afterwards, the taste of battle fresh on his lips. It was extremely intoxicating. Their bites leaving nothing, the way they fell hard. It was all too good to be true and it had given the boy a new sense of self.

The boy stopped behind a tree to watch his brother like the creeper he was.

Plague Effect: 「 Poisonous fog - irritates eyes, mouth, ears and nose 」

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From the darkness, a being emerged.

And within the still silence of mist and shadowed trees, the clang of clinking chains echoed quietly into the midnight air. It was a sound that appeared to whistle within the quiet breeze and reverberate between the wooden trunks of pine.

It was a discordant note loud enough to make any passerby pause with thoughtful suspicion. The forest had never made such sounds before, could it have all been in your head? And yet, the sound continued…

Growing louder with each thoughtful step forward.

And in its wake, the squelch of something damp and moist oozed into the once peaceful earth. A sound you would have expected in a bog or a swamp—not a dense pine forest.

However, between the expanding mist that only seemed to grow denser between you and your brother, the circluating sound of rattling metal and squelching ooze could only be described as exceedingly disorienting.

Something was coming for you — something was hunting you — but what?

After a few passing beats, a guttural growl escaped like a line cast into a sea of mist, luring you both to uncover what type of monsters truly lived within the shadows.

A voice seemed to come from a space behind you: Filit thilkren, (“Foolish children,”) it uttered, the sound like rot and filth against your ears, Yia an sepalond hire. (”You don’t belong here.”)

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A being emerged.

It did not arrive, it did not approach — it emerged, as if from the very mouth of the mist itself ... with dripping skin and soulless eyes. Draugur felt it before he heard it, and he heard it before he saw it. The air would heavy, filling with an ill portent as the very life seemed to dissipate from the sky. The earth would groan, as if pained by the very presence of the cursed figure.

Draugur felt his hackles raise, his body stilling instinctually as the atmosphere twisted.

He hadn't noticed Abaddon, for all of his attention was instantly captured by the vision that unraveled before him. It was spectral, much like the bears had been. But this challenger felt ... different. It was, perhaps, as if he had only been introduced to the mini-boss before, and he had just now crossed the threshold into the lair of the boss.

The otherworldly growl shook him to the bone.

It was incorporeal.

Until it wasn't.

At the sound of the voice, Draugur's head would twist, finally breaking free of the frozen chains that had bound him. It spoke in riddles, the words filling his ears even as the boy flattened them against his skull. He did not recognize the small seed of fear that had planted itself in the pit of his stomach, his lips twisting into a growl as he snapped uselessly at the air. The space between them tasted foul, like grime and dirt.

Hvar ertu ...? (Where are you ...?) 'What are you...?' He would speak in riddles of his own as his voice slithered from his tightened lips.

The poison would spread, burning his eyes.

His skin.

And the seed in his stomach began to blossom.

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Plague Effect: 「 Poisonous fog - irritates eyes, mouth, ears and nose 」

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Thick, acrid air filled every chamber of your lungs, burning right down to your bronchioles - it is suffocating.

Wretched, nasty, it did not care for the way the rest of the world saw it. This was as Mythris demanded, wasn't it? What She needed. The drip of saliva might have been nothing, but the poison that ran thick from its body dripped down to feed that seed of fear. Seeking, it would find it's target, drawn immediately to the new fresh bloom and the inviting sickly sweet scent of fear.

The snapping of the frantic youth meant nothing to it. What did a monster notice of the protests of the prey?

What might have been the sweet embrace of a courter instead was sinister, the limb that had snaked up and then extended over Draugur's back quickly dug claws into him. With a yank, Draugur was on the ground, pale flesh hitting the ground with a heavy thud that echoed through the pines. The sound was not deafened by the noxious fog, the ground descending into a quagmire that sought to hold and cling to Draugur.


The voice that could be heard from directly above him, a toxic fume that burned the vulnerable eyes and nose, to where every breath would only bring more tears. Watth dre liltal du, (“Watch the lights die,”) It seethed, teeth gnashing as claws pulled deep across his body. Fal yiar tsid sak. (”Feel your blood seep.”) Was it the ground reaching up to pull his snout in, or was it a foot pressing down on his neck - was it both? It was somehow everywhere, claws rending through pale flesh, putrid jaws closing over his snout. Yia win lab du. (”You will all die”)

Further they sank, the mire swallowing them up mindlessly, and it took several moments for the poisonous fog to start to dissipate.

Draugur was half buried, face buried to his eyes and shoulders partially trapped in the ground of Mythris herself. If he had enough time to save himself, if his brother lurking nearby was fast enough to help - that would left to be seen. But Dre Klage was gone, only the vague clinking of its chains echoed in the far distance.

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The air grew more dense, thick and painful as Draugur's breathing became more and more shallow. Eyes would narrow, his mind fighting the instinctual panic that his body began to deliver him. He'd never ... felt this way before. This level of unease and panic was new to him — this threat of death. In all the times that he had killed those lesser than him ... he had never gotten to experience what it was like on the other side of the coin.

The being that had once been visible now dissipated into an engulfing mist around him. It felt like whatever foul creature had emerged from the earth had become the earth ... the air ... his very breath.

The foreign words spun through his mind, clogging his senses and causing his head to bloom with a powerful headache. Draugur's eyes would shut, the poison burning him. His vision became more and more blurry as his paws wavered beneath him ... his stomach and throat hot with acid.

He hardly processed what was happening when the tendrils of the earth erupted from beneath him. Barbed vines, thorns as sharp as razors, found purchase over his back. Pain shot through him, and the boy, now just a boy, would release a screech as the rear half of his body was impossibly dragged beneath the earth below him. Blood seeped from his wounds, ichor mixing with grime as the earth attempted to imbibe upon him.

The monster tried to swallow him whole.

The boy would paddle, his limbs now suspended in the mire as he moved uselessly against his damnation.

Let go of me, he would rumble, not finding the strength to release the words as a roar. And why did it matter? He was talking to ... nothing ... no one ... a monster. Draugur's voice seemed to be deafened by the quagmire, the life slowly being squeezed out of him as the earth continued to encase him. Draugur could feel the pointed vines scraping against him, ripping at his skin, dragging him deeper.

His breaths were stifled, muddied by muck and mud and poison as his front limbs flailed against the slick earth. And all he could do was struggle, lying in the trap that Dre Klage had laid for him, as he awaited whatever was next.

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Skill: Ghost

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The clink and clang of chains could be heard, though Abaddon knew not what chains were, he knew the sound didn't belong. Audits swiveled towards the nose as the air was filled with a poisonous fog, a gas that seeped through the area and filled nose nostrils and lungs. He snorted and shied away from the smell, covering his nose with his forearm. As the sound grew louder Abaddon narrowed his eyes through the putrid fog and kept eyes on the direction of the clanging.

The sounds of squelching could be heard, a sound like feet pulling from mud, and he grimaced at it. Duo-toned optics kept gaze towards where the beast would emerge, a growl echoed through the area, words unlike anything he'd ever heard, a strange language echoing out from behind his brother and Abaddon suppressed his own growl in the wake of his hiding spot.

It seemed to appear from the mists like a apparition, Abaddon rose to his full form, still hidden as he watched still as stone, frozen in place by an emotion he'd never felt before. It was like pins and needles traveling through his veins, a cold feeling like a plunge into icy waters. Abaddon watched as Draugur rose his hackles as Abaddon rose his own, Abaddon was frozen in place as he watched Draug speak in a tongue of their own, a question as the poison spread through Abaddon's body, his nose stung and his eyes water but he couldn't move.

Abaddon cough, surely he wasn't hidden anymore with the sounds of his lungs struggling for fresh air, but he didn't care as he leaned forward towards the scene unraveling before him.

Abaddon watched as the dripping beast of sludge and shadows pulled Draugur with a clawed foot down to the ground viciously. Abaddon couldn't understand what the beast was saying but it wasn't good as Draugur was shoved down to the dirt below. Jowls closed over Draugur's mouth and Abaddon tried to move but stayed frozen in place, as if the sludge from the monster had reached his own paws.

The large boy watched as Draugur was sucked deep into the earth, his body disappearing as the beast pulled him down lower and lower before evaporating into nothing. Abaddon couldn't sit still anymore. Abaddon reacted.

Lunging forward, surging from his hiding place he leapt for Draugur. The beast boy didn't think he only reacted on instinct as his brother drowned in the earth below. I gotchu! Abaddon shouted as he grabbed what was left of the sinking sibling and yanked backwards, tugging the equally large boy as best as he could, to try and free him from the ground. As he pulled he used his claws to dig, his feet wildly scrambling to free whatever dirt he could from the pale revenant, he tried his damndest.

Draugur would not die today.